Open Door Evangelism

Sermon Preached by Pastor Larry C. Brincefield on 5/16/2004

Title: “Open” Door Evangelism

Text: Acts 16:9-15

Introduction

1. I subscribe to the “open door” policy…

• When I was an Administrator in a Nursing Home…

• I always had my door open…

• Unless I was meeting with someone about something very delicate or private…

• I always wanted to be accessible to any of my staff…

• The residents…their families…vendors…

• Anyone!

2. I don’t know if you realize it or not…

• But God has an open door policy too…

• Open Door Evangelism…

• And we read about it in our text.

Read Text: Acts 16:9-15

Body

1. Open Doors

A. You have probably heard people referring to “open” and “closed” doors.

• How God will lead us by open doors…

• And closed doors…

• That’s all fine and good…

• But is it Biblical?

• Does God really work by “opening and closing doors”?

B. I’m happy to report that yes, Scripture does tell us that God “opens and closes” doors.

• Here in our text, we see that God closed the door for them to go to Asia…

• And God closed the door for them to go to Bithynia…

• But then, God opened the door for them to go to Macedonia…

• God was closing smaller doors…

• And opening larger doors…

• And as a result of this event that we read in our Scripture this morning…

• The Gospel of Jesus Christ was spread into Europe…

• And a great harvest was begun.

C. It’s also interesting to note that…

• Just because a door is closed for the time being…

• That it will stay closed for good.

• Paul had probably planned to go to Ephesus…

• The leading city in Asia…

• But God had other plans…

• And Ephesus would have to “wait for a later time”

• And the time did come when Paul would enter Ephesus…

• During his 3rd missionary journey.

D. How can we discern God’s “open and closed” doors?

• How did Paul discern it?

• Scripture doesn’t explicitly tells us…

• But when a Christian has his/her heart in tune with Christ…

• Through reading God’s Word…

• Through time spent in prayer…

• You know when God is speaking to you…

• You get an inner feeling or an inner “knowing”….

• How do you know that it’s God…

• And not just some bad Chinese food?

• Well, I’ve had bad Chinese food…

• And I’ve known when God was speaking to me…

• And I could easily tell the difference…

• The key is…what’s your relationship with Jesus Christ?

• Are you current?

• Are you enjoying a real, vibrant, relationship with Him?

• It’s like my relationship with my wife…

• Because our relationship is current…

• And close…

• And real…

• I know when Kay is speaking to me…

• And, in fact, many times, I know what she is thinking and feeling…

• Simply because I’ve spent the time and energy in developing a close relationship with her.

• Do the same with Christ…

• And when He opens doors…

• And closes others…

• You will know it is Christ.

2. Open Eyes to See the Vision

A. Not only does God open and close doors…

• But we must have open eyes to see the vision…

• Paul didn’t just have some faint sense of open and closed doors…

• He had open eyes to see the vision of the lost…

• He saw a vision of a man crying out, “Come over to Macedonia and help us” Acts 16:9 (NIV)

• It is only when we have a vision of the lost…

• That we will be moved to action…

• Our vision for our Church is “Each one…win one”…

• Each Christian winning another person to Jesus Christ…

• But if all you think is that this is a cutesy phrase to manipulate people to come to church…

• If all you think is that its “each man for himself”…

• “let him find his own way to Christ”…

• Then you don’t have open eyes to see a vision for the lost…

• Then your eyes are closed to the many people who are lost and hurting who you come into contact with each day.

• God opens the doors…

• But we must open our eyes to see the vision of the lost….

3. We must also have Open Ears to Hear the Lost

A. Paul didn’t just have open eyes to see a vision of the man in Macedonia…

• But he had open ears to hear him as well…

• Sometimes we will see the lost…